We’ll continue to post updates on David and Collet Stephan as more elements are revealed. This piece in Common Ground Magazine (May 8, 2016) was written by Ian Stewart. Ian is the co-founder and Vice President of NHPPA. His work’s guiding compass has been to forward the rare commodity of truth. He is a longtime activist and expert in the NHP Regulations as Director of Regulatory Affairs with Truehope. Truehope is synonymous with freedom of choice. They were the target of one of the most aggressive instances of Health Canada’s enforcement action to control natural health products in Canada. This is Ian’s latest report on the Stephan trial and verdict.

A recent Med-Effect notice (March 2016) from Health Canada titled: “International clinical trials, including trials in Canada, are being stopped due to serious adverse events with the drug Zydelig, in combination with other cancer drugs”, reveals that these serious events also included deaths. The company wouldn’t disclose how many died more recently, however, it said that they’re mostly related to infections.

The Zydelig drug maker Gilead Sciences had reported in 2014 that earlier clinical trials did have three deaths of patients on Zydelig. Other box label warnings on the FDA approved drug include side effects such as: “fatal and serious toxicities: hepatic, severe diarrhea, colitis, pneumonitis and intestinal perforation.” Yet, FDA had “accelerated approval” based on positive results of a Phase 2 study.

At the time of this post, while the six latest international clinical trials for Zydelig are stopped, the drug is still on the market.

Personal choice on how and when to treat yourself or your family members’ health is a fundamental platform of freedom and is within your rights. The decision to use natural treatments or synthetic substances is yours, not the government’s.

RARE, CONTROVERSIAL CASES LIKE THIS DEMONSTRATE A LITTLE-KNOWN VOID IN CANADA’S CRIMINAL LAW.

Interesting, Written by Karen Selick–lawyer and commentator. “Another version of my article on how jury nullification might have applied in the tragic Stephan case. I would like all Canadians to be aware of the power they hold as jurors, even though nobody can tell them about it at the trial.”

Karen writes, “It must be a huge relief for the members of a jury when an eight-week trial ends, but even so, it’s not often that half-a-dozen jurors dissolve into tears and sobs in the courtroom immediately after announcing their verdict. That’s what happened on April 26 after the Lethbridge, Alberta jury found David and Collet Stephan guilty of failing to provide the necessaries of life for their son Ezekiel. The 19-month-old boy died in 2012 after contracting meningitis and spending eight minutes without air in an inadequately equipped ambulance taking him to hospital. One courtroom observer (a friend of the Stephans) told me six of the twelve jurors cried, some quite loudly. Global News reported that “several jurors” cried. TheCanadian Press said two. The CBC — the news source that had consistently painted a negative portrait of the Stephans throughout the trial — didn’t bother mentioning jurors crying, saying in its online coverage only that Collet Stephan and “people in the courtroom’s gallery” cried.

Canada: “As long as the public doesn’t realize that one in 13 people coming into the hospital will experience some kind of adverse event — and that’s the conservative estimate — then there isn’t any pressure to say, ‘Listen, fix these damn things.” January 16, 2015

Dear Jury, I deeply Love each one of you and appreciate the tremendous sacrifice that you have made over the last 8 weeks. I only wish that you could’ve seen how you were being played by the crowns deception, drama and trickery that not only led to our key witnesses being muzzled, but has also now led to a dangerous precedent being set in Canada.

The flood gates have now been opened and if we do not fall in line with parenting as seen fit by the government, we all stand in risk of criminal prosecution. Remember what the crown prosecutors closing remarks were to combat the fact that the ill equipped ambulance resulted in Ezekiel’s brain death. She communicated that this was not about him dying, but rather about whether or not his life was endangered at any point due to our actions.

How many parents have lost children for various reasons, all of which could be concluded that the child’s life was endangered and that the parents should have been able to foresee it? How many parents have had close calls to losing a child, wherein it could be concluded that the child’s life was endangered and the parents should have been able to foresee it? Whether medical attention is sought or not and your child lives, it is of no consequence. It is only about whether or not it can be proven that at some point your child’s life was endangered, and if so you may find yourselves in the same boat as us.

My main concern is no longer for Collet and I, but rather for Canadian’s as a whole. May Heaven help us all!

NO WORDS ON THIS VERDICT. THE REPORTING FROM CBC AND NATIONAL POST WERE OFFENSIVE AND UNJUST.

NHPPA’s Vice President, Ian Stewart, was in the courtroom for the entire 16 day trial. He shared each day’s happenings. The March 10 to April 21 entries will give you a much needed perspective if you’ve only had access to mainstream media. You’ll read about the reasonable steps the parents took in the two week period leading up to the 911 calls. You’ll also read about an expert medical examiner testifying that had it not been for an ill-equipped ambulance, forcing Ezekiel to be without air for 8 minutes, he would have most likely survived. This conviction is a failure for freedom of choice and a win for “medical misadventure”.

There will be fallout for every Canadian, regardless of their personal choices in how they decide to treat their families and themselves.

“Democracy Now’s” Amy Goodman. It is US election commentary but what is relevant to NHPPA, and so perfectly crafted, is what she closes with, “…All we get is static. That veil of distortion and lies and misrepresentations and half-truths that obscure reality. When what we need the media to give us is the dictionary definition of static: criticism, opposition, unwanted interference. We need a media that covers power, not covers for power. We need a media that is the fourth estate, not for the state. And we need a media that covers the movements, that create static, and make history.”

Mission Statement

The Natural Health Products Protection Association is federally incorporated as a non-profit company with the sole object of: Protecting access to Natural Health Products and Dietary Supplements.
By limiting its purpose to protecting access to Natural Health Products and Dietary Supplements, the NHPPA will focus on identifying and responding to threats facing the Natural Health Product and Dietary Supplement industry.